Manuscript Location

Place of Origin

Date of Composition

Description

This 154-page manuscript is a handwritten copy of Vincent La Chapelle’s The Modern Cook, Volume 1, an influential English cookbook that was printed in 1733. The anonymous scribe omitted the lengthy dedication, preface, table of contents, and diagrams of table settings found in the printed volume, and the scribe added a few flourishes to distinguish sections. But, otherwise, the scribe copied the printed book verbatim, not only transcribing titles, subtitles, catchwords, and page numbers, but even copying the “Advertisements” section of the printed book into the manuscript.

The manuscript is written in a large notebook, measuring 405 x 315 millimeters (19.5 x 12.5 inches). The pressed board covers are deceptively plain, as the script is clean and elegant, suggesting that it may have been the work of a professional copier. There is no title page, likely because the original was torn away. The binding is in a very fragile condition. 

Born in France and trained in French cooking, Vincent La Chapelle was employed for many years in the household of Phillip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield. The recipes in The Modern Cook are French and very haute cuisine. It would have been difficult for most households, even quite privileged ones with large kitchen staffs, to reproduce the expensive, complex dishes that the book outlines. Nonetheless, the book seems to have been widely read, and its recipes were borrowed, in whole or in part, by many successive English cookbook authors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when French cuisine enjoyed enormous prestige in England and throughout Europe, as well as in America. In addition to a notably expansive selection of recipes for turkey, The Modern Cook contains recipes for many birds no longer commonly eaten, such as thrushes, lapwings, teals, turtledoves, and larks.